5S Letter from Dr. Thornton on the Cow-Pox. 



a consuleralte eruption appeared on this cheek, which went 

 on to maturation. Three days before the appearance of the 

 eruption she had slight chilly fits, pain in her head and 

 limbs, and some dcgiee of fever. 



" On the second day of the eruption she complained of a 

 slight sore throat. Mr. Fewster seems doubtful whether 

 these symptoms were occasioned bv this occurrence of local 

 small-pox; but, I apprehend, without reason. I have re- 

 lated, says the indefatigable Mr. King, in my Treatise on 

 the Cow-Pox, a case of Mrs. Fraise, now living at South- 

 ampton, who had several small-pocks on her face and her 

 breast from the same cause, accompanied with more violent 

 fever and pain in the head than what sometimes attend the 

 disorder when it occurs the first time. 



" With matter from the nurse-maid, Mr. Fewster inocu- 

 lated two other children, and produced the perfect small- 

 pox. The late Mr. Kite, of Gravesend, excited a variolous 

 pustule on his own arm, and sent some of the matter to 

 Chatham barracks, which proved effective. A late pro- 

 fessor at Edinburgh used to mention, " that an itinerant 

 inoculator practised this method on himself, for the sake 

 of preserving a constant supply of variolous matter." 



*' A gentleman of mv acquaintance," says Dr. Buchan, 

 *' who practised inoculation very extensively, had taken as 

 inuch matter from a patient in the small-pox as was suffi- 

 cient to inoculate forty or fifty others. For this he had 

 b'" a obliged to open a good many pustules ; and while his 

 hands were daubed with the matter, happening to cut one 

 of his fingers, he innnediatcly put his thumb on it to keep 

 in the blood, and held it thee for some time till a rag was 

 got, with which he bound up the wound, and took no 

 Further notice of it. 



" About eight days after, he began to feel an unusual 

 weariness upon the least motion, and con)plained of a dull 

 pain of the head and loins ; with a lisllcssness, and waiil of 

 appetite. On the ninth or tenth, in the evening, he com- 

 plained of sickness ; and was actually seized with a syncope, 

 or fainting fit. 



" On the next morning an eruption appeared, which was 

 pretty universal, but thickest upon the limbs. This had, 

 indeed, more the appearance of a rash than of small-pox ; 

 but as it appeared about the same time after receiving the 

 wound, that the small-pox generally do after inoculation ; 

 asi^thc symptoms, previous to the eruption, were the same 

 with those w hich usually precede the eruption of the small- 

 pox ; and as the eruption continued upon the skin about 

 .3 the 



